Coming Home
by Caladria101
Summary: After Vala's back in the SGC following her amnesiawaitressingbrush with the police, Sam takes her home to her place for the weekend.


_Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance. __**Richard von Weizsaecker**_

o…O…o

SG-1 congregate in the infirmary, as behind a curtain Dr Lam examines the newly recovered Vala. Daniel sits besides Sam, his presence a warm weight one side as Cam is on the other. Without either the General or Vala, the room is still – Teal'c the other side of Daniel his usual silent self. It feels unnatural, somehow.

Dr Lam emerges, followed by Vala – she seems smaller to Sam, somehow, more subdued.

"I'll do a full check up in the morning, but for now, she's Goa'uld-free and I'll clear her provisionally to go get some sleep," Dr Lam says, and Sam drags her attention back to the doctor.

"Is she cleared to go off base?" she finds herself saying. The walls of the SGC are close, and narrow, and some days they hold you and others they close in. There's a reason Sam sometimes keeps her bike in the basement. Vala's been pretty much free for these past two weeks – asking her to step voluntarily back into the cage straightaway seems cruel and unusual. She knows that Teal'c spent far too much time in the gym after his attempt at living off base a few years back. Sam looks at Vala, who is showing faint surprise all over her face, but a hope and almost pleading that Sam is sure she isn't meant to see.

Lam nods, and turns to Vala. "Given you've been on Earth for two weeks, any alien pathogens you might have picked up from Athena are already scattered all over, so be my guest." She sounds almost irritated at that, as if it's a personal affront.

"My house, if you want?" asks Sam. Vala just nods, and offers a small, uncertain smile at the rest of the team before following Sam out of the infirmary.

The drive home is silent – normally, Vala chatters and twists and turns to see all the planet she can in the short drive home, but today she picks at the CDs, staring at the backs of covers blankly, eyes unseeing. Sam tries to start conversation, but can't think of anything to say. She should be able to – there aren't many people around that have had the dubious pleasure of having memories not of their making dragged from them by force, but maybe some experiences are better left unshared. She'd never spoken to the Colonel or Daniel after Ne'tu. Hadn't wanted to drag up skeletons of people long gone – her mother, Charlie, Sha're.

She turns up the radio in an effort to persuade Vala to just make some noise. Vala obliges, but forgets to sing badly.

o…O…o

It's early still, and Vala leafs through the DVDs half heartedly as Sam fetches two glasses and a bottle from the kitchen. She's got one hand on the freezer as a voice behind her comments, "Don't tell me that you've managed to resist that ice cream we left last time for this long?"

Sam gives Vala an apologetic smile and fetches out the carton. She hasn't been home enough to think of ice cream and pleasantries – one of her team was missing. She doesn't say that to Vala, though; something intangible holding her back from reinforcing what seems to overwhelm the other woman. "Not as fun on your own," she says eventually, settling for a happy medium.

Vala passes on the obvious potential for innuendo, and snags open a drawer to bring out two spoons. Sam gives her a long, searching look, seeking… something. She doesn't quite know what. She doesn't quite know why. But there's something. She wishes she were Daniel, for a second; a people person with some great insight into the human condition. Or the General or Teal'c, with their quiet, understated understanding, better masked in one than the other. But all she's got is her.

"What're we watching?" she settles for, as Vala picks up the wine and glasses and heads to the sitting room.

o…O…o

Indiana Jones is fighting off Nazis as the empty carton is discarded. Sam considers him for a second before asking, "Don't we see enough of this every day?"

Vala just shakes her head, and continues to watch.

Sam gives up the pretence of watching the television and watches Vala instead; seeing her unguarded face for the few moments it takes her to realise she's being watched.

"What?" she says, frowning in confusion, spoon sticking out her mouth. It should be comical, but it isn't.

Sam continues to watch. She wants to ask what's wrong, how to fix it. No, scrub that. She wants Vala to tell her without prompting. But this is Vala, and she's her.

And Vala just shakes her head and returns to Indy and his escapades, methodically licking every scrap off of the spoon, handle and all. "You came for me," she tells the spoon eventually, gazing at her upside down reflection in its surface. "You didn't give up."

"We don't leave our people behind," Sam responds automatically, although it doesn't make it less sincere. She lives that; breathes it, eats it, sleeps it. It's a fibre of her being that has been true for so long that she doesn't need to think it, only know it.

"Exactly," Vala replies, quietly enough that Sam isn't sure that she heard it. A moment later she is, as Vala reveals herself with her cover up. "Qetesh used to have Jaffa racing to her aid, of course, but they weren't _half_ as entertaining as Colonel Mitchell."

"Qetesh isn't you," Sam points out. This isn't a truth she believes bone-deep, but one that has to cling on to when the nightmares come; she _needs_ to believe this one.

"Sometimes it's hard to tell."

Sam gets that. She still has odd glimpses of memories; of planets that she's never known, heartaches for people she's never loved, the resonance of words she's never heard – from people who died long before she was dreamt of – still echo through her mind.

"I tried fighting her, when I was first taken," Vala says. "She killed my fiancé with my hand."

The words lie bleak between them – as much as Sam wanted Vala to be able to say that to her; now the moment's arrived, she has no words to offer. The tilt to Vala's chin practically dares her to offer sympathy, or pretend understanding. That, at least, Sam gets. They're both too proud in different ways.

"The guilt doesn't go away," Sam responds. She can still see the look on Daniel's face as Jolinar dangled Sha're's freedom in front of him. She still wonders if Jolinar actually knew something – not as much as she pretended, but enough to give them a hint, a clue, anything.

They both stare blankly at the screen as Indiana declares, "I _hate_ snakes," Vala's glass twirling idly between her fingers.

"Are they as good as they say they are?" she asks eventually, eyes fixed on Sam. "Do the great and wonderful Tok'ra live up to their grand promises of a shared symbiotic experience?"

Sam wants to say yes. She wants to think of Sel'mac and her dad, and Martouf and Lantash. Even Anise and Freya. But all she remembers is screaming in her own body and nobody hearing her. Only being allowed to talk for a brief flash of panic, to beg the Colonel – _Jack!_ – for something, _anything_, and feeling desperation that was not her own, nor ever could be. She never felt the harmony that her father achieved, only heard whispers of it through the periphery of her terror.

"The Tok'ra symbiote has exactly the same ability as a Goa'uld symbiote to control the body of their host," she replies, voice even and calm – clinical even to her own ears. "So by their very biochemical nature and the way that their nervous system works, they can seize control if they want to or have to."

"_Have_ to?" Vala queries, voice laden with scepticism. "I don't think there's a time when I've ever been incapable of controlling my own body, given the chance."

Sam doesn't doubt it – Vala controls her body by pushing it as far as it will go just as Sam controls hers by not pushing it at all. Two sides of a coin, with only perception to separate their motives; both manipulating and controlling in their own ways. But Vala had years, perhaps decades, of not being in control.

"Bad choice of words," she admits. There had been a few times her dad had mentioned, a rueful flyaway comment about Sel'mac saving his neck yet again by seizing control, but he'd always tried to keep them light, humorous, as if trying to protect his daughter from the depth of the bond he shared. She shouldn't be so grateful for that protection.

Vala is still looking at her, wanting to ask that question, to point out that a scientific answer to a personal question just wasn't good enough, but Sam is relieved, or irritated, or _something_, to realise that the other woman is as tentative about pushing this thing they're building as she is. Finally, Vala shifts over on the couch and rests her head on Sam's shoulder, and sighs. Sam tenses barely perceptibly, then relaxes, letting her own breath escape more slowly, less audibly.

"Jolinar was scared," she offers, defending her beyond death. She doesn't know who she owes it to – herself, Jolinar, Martouf. "There was an Ashrak."

"My people were scared when I returned," Vala returns. "They tried to stone me to death." She says it matter-of-factly, as if she were stating that they ate bread for breakfast each morning. Vala's hair is tickling Sam's neck now, but she doesn't offer to move. "Qetesh's Jaffa burnt down my house after she took me as host, and people died. And she kept them as slaves," she added, as a throwaway thought.

"You're free now," Sam tells her.

"Am I?"

Sam has to wonder at that sometimes. Free in name, yes, but she's tied to this place, this facility, this cause, these_ people_, like she's never been tied to anything before, not even the Air Force. The Air Force gives her the option of walking away, the galaxy doesn't; it consumes her hopes and dreams and desires until what _she_ wants pales in comparison.

"No, not really," she admits finally. "Want out?"

Vala lifts her head up, searching for something – maybe to see if it's a serious offer, maybe to see if Sam wants her out. Maybe she's just searching her own soul for the answer. She doesn't answer, but she does settle her head back on Sam's shoulder. And well, if she's blinking a little too much, then Sam pays no heed to it.

After a good ten minutes of silence, she waves her spoon around to punctuate a point. "I think he should take his shirt off more often," she says decisively. "Although he's really rather a wimp."

Sam snorts. "You're just saying that because you'd like to be the one kissing him better."

"Oh, please, I had to find something to get me through a seventh viewing of Star Wars."

o…O…o

Indy is walking off, arm in arm with the girl, and the credits roll.

"Why do your silly little movies insist that everything ends happily, and every loose end is tied up?" Vala demands, almost petulantly. "He'll just break her heart again, running after treasure."

"He could give up his treasure-hunting, settle down, live an honest life," Sam retorts, wondering why she of all people is defending the leaky plot points of a movie.

"Do you _really_ think that happens?" Vala scoffs. "It's not as easy as that."

Sam looks at Vala. "I know. But it still happens," she says lightly.

Vala scowls prettily. Sam lays a mental bet that she's practiced that one in front of a mirror to get it just so. "Oh, you think you're so clever," she mutters, sticking her tongue out at Sam.

"Yeah, sometimes," Sam agrees, and ducks from the cushion flying towards her head, laughing.

o…O…o

Written for the ficathon from the LJ community gatewomen, the prompt was: After Vala's back in the SGC following her amnesia/waitressing/brush with the police, Sam takes her home to her place for the weekend. Somehow they end up talking about being taken as hosts.

With thanks to pepperfield at LJ and Gater62 at Gateworld for the betas.


End file.
